Saturday 14 June 2014 01.00 EDT
First published on Saturday 14 June 2014 01.00 EDT

Route information

Length 35 miles

Duration 3 hours for the fit, 2 days of pleasant cruising

Start/Finish Colne

Classification Moderate

Terrain Road and offroad

Who's it good for? Families with older kids, a day out with friends or partners

Map OS Landranger 103 Blackburn and Burnley

The tour of Pendle

The Grand Tour of Pendle may sound like a race but it's far from that: the 35-mile ride around east Lancashire follows quiet roads, cycle paths and canal towpaths that really take you through an under-appreciated part of the north, and at your own pace.

Beginning and ending in Colne, lush, rolling rural fells and farmland dominate the tour's heart, and though not explicitly waymarked, navigational duties are fairly light here as a lot of the time you'll follow the blue and white signs of national cycle routes.

The Grand Tour is pitched as a two-day route for family or leisure cyclists, with shorter family routes plotted out too. Keener cyclists, meanwhile, can do the route in a day – which is what I chose to do.

Railway to rollercoasterThough not a scenic start, Colne Station feels an appropriate place to begin a tour of Lancashire, being one of its numerous, once-wealthy milltowns. Quickly, you find yourself leaving the townscape behind for the farmlands of the Forest of Trawden. This serene opening section over to Laneshaw Bridge, where abandoned factories and terraces are replaced with cattle sheds and drystone walls, is arguably the finest bit of the whole tour.

After this, the busier Skipton Old Road feels something of a comedown but it is just knocking you down to build you up again with an unexpected, fabulous rollercoaster of a road that carries you down into Earby. This few miles of road will convert almost anyone to the joys of road cycling.

After a towpath section at Barnoldswick, the route's iconic section begins. The singletrack roads, such as Brogden Lane and Whytha Road, are pretty much deserted, and it's on these miles of where-is-everyone roads that you can really relax and de-stress (or attack and adrenalise if you choose).

Whale of a rideIt is not until you reach the hamlet of Twiston that the eponymous star of this tour appears. Pendle Hill was typically hulking and atmospheric during my ride there, its famous whaleback profile half hidden under dense cloud. The hill dominates the landscape for miles around. It's Lancashire's best lump, no doubt.

After a thrilling descent into Barley, you expect to pay for it with a hellish climb but, as with the rest of this cunningly plotted route, the climbs never exceed your gearing range, or leg power.

Nelson and Barrowford hail the return of the "urban" but the riding is pleasant all the same, as cycle lanes through well-tended parks and an entertainingly bendy canal towpath bring you back to Colne.

Mountain biking in Gisburn Forest Photograph: Alamy

Alternative options

Despite its rural and hilly landscape, Lancashire has, perhaps belatedly, cottoned on to the joys of mountain biking, with Gisburn Forest and Lee Quarry among its new, modern "trail centres".

Gisburn forest is the more typical specimen of the two, based in Forestry Commission woodland in an area of outstanding natural beauty and offering the typical mix of graded routes: family- to expert-level. Designed in partnership with local riders and volunteers, trails have unusual, "rockery" sections with twisty, narrow singletrack for descents and plainer wider tracks for ascents.

Gisburn's two main trails are the blue-graded Bottoms Beck (6 miles) and the red-graded "the 8" (11 miles), the latter with a number of black-graded options. Meanwhile, the Hope Line is a gravity-assisted run featuring table tops and some hairier dropoffs of more than four feet.

Lee Quarry is a more unique place and experience, however. In a rather forgotten valley, Rossendale, this disused quarry trail centre's unexpected popularity has provided an economic boost to the area. This former quarry is no pretty little forest in the back of beyond though, it's more a hole on a hillside full of rocks. Nonetheless, there are sections of superb flow and rhythm, and for younger riders there are a pair of brilliant "pump tracks": a tight loop of rises, dips and turns where sheer momentum keeps you hurtling around.

Another mountain-biking option close to Gisburn is Wycoller country park. With the option of starting at Colne if you don't mind a climb, the loop features some strange rocks formations at Boulsworth Hill. The Pennine Mountain Bike Association has information about Lancashire's trail centres.

For other on-road options in the west of the county, where a series of bike hire stations operate, a 10-mile tarmac saunter from Martin Mere Wetland Centre to Rufford takes in nature reserves and Rufford's titular 16th-century Old Hall, open to visitors.

Useful information

How to get thereColne is on the east Lancashire line (northernrail.org), with trains running through Preston and Blackburn, and is at the end of the M65 motorway. If you're coming from due east you should get off the A1 on to the A59, then the A56.

Where to stayFor Colne and Gisburn: The Stirk House Hotel (doubles from £116 B&B) is blessed with great views thanks to its proximity to Pendle Hill (above), the Forest of Bowland and Yorkshire dales. Dam Head Farm's Blacksmith's Cottage (doubles from £70) mixes heritage with a dash of luxury and has an open garden to enjoy the natural surroundings.